Best marathon: 2:23:57 (2007, St. George). Won the Top of Utah Marathon twice (2003,2004). Won the USATF LDR circuit in Utah in 2006.

Draper Days 5 K 15:37 (2004)

Did not know this until June 2012, but it turned out that I've been running with spina bifida occulta in L-4 vertebra my entire life, which explains the odd looking form, struggles with the top end speed, and the poor running economy (cannot break 16:00 in 5 K without pushing the VO2 max past 75).

Short-Term Running Goals:

Qualify for the US Olympic Trials. With the standard of 2:19 on courses with the elevation drop not exceeding 450 feet this is impossible unless I find an uncanny way to compensate for the L-4 defect with my muscles. But I believe in miracles.

Long-Term Running Goals:

2:08 in the marathon. Become a world-class marathoner. This is impossible unless I find a way to fill the hole in L-4 and make it act healthy either by growing the bone or by inserting something artificial that is as good as the bone without breaking anything important around it. Science does not know how to do that yet, so it will take a miracle. But I believe in miracles.

Personal:

I was born in 1973. Grew up in Moscow, Russia. Started running in 1984 and so far have never missed more than 3 consecutive days. Joined the LDS Church in 1992, and came to Provo, Utah in 1993 to attend BYU. Served an LDS mission from 1994-96 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Got married soon after I got back. My wife Sarah and I are parents of nine children: Benjamin, Jenny, Julia, Joseph, Jacob, William, Stephen, Matthew, Mary, and Bella. We home school our children.

I am a software engineer/computer programmer/hacker whatever you want to call it, and I am currently working for RedX. Aside from the Fast Running Blog, I have another project to create a device that is a good friend for a fast runner. I called it Fast Running Friend.

Favorite Quote:

...if we are to have faith like Enoch and Elijah we must believe what they believed, know what they knew, and live as they lived.

Went to the Harrington Memorial 5 K in the morning. Benjamin and Jennifer were doing 5 K, Julia decided to do a mile. The 5 K course turned out to be quite a beast - first mile downhill, second mile a never ending up, and then the last mile down. Benjamin ran a PR of 25:05. He was not quite mentally ready for the hill, and was about to quit right before he reached the top, but I reminded him he would lose to Jennifer if he did, and that helped. Jennifer handled the hill and the rest of the race just fine running 29:05. Both got trophies and were quite happy about it.

Julia ran a mile, tripped half way, would not continue without a bandaid, took her 17 minutes to finish the race. She did better than Benjamin at her age though - when he was 3, he tripped before a 400 meter race, and would not even start it.

Afterwards, went to the Provo Canyon with George. George ran trails. I went to do the Squaw Peak road run. Up in 32:57 (new record), down in 21:11. On the last mile down, started getting a side ache. I think it is from a bit of a cold I've caught recently - I always get them when I have a cold.

Wore ankle weights for the rest of the day. Did my always on the run routine. Total of 15 miles for the day.

Eric still had a sore calf, so George and I went without him on the dirt trail. After we got back, I did my 45 s slow, 15 s fast fartlek for a mile with ankle weights. Did the mile in 6:51, but cheated starting my last fast part with 100 to go. Afterwards, ran a tempo loop (2.11) in 12:23. Felt good on the uphill, but then the quads started cramping up a bit, and I started feeling I was working too hard for this slow of a pace. I wonder if the problem is the tension in the muscle impeding the blood flow. That is what it intuitively feels to be.

Ran with Benjamin and Jennifer, and did my always on the run for the total of 13 miles for the day.

Another crazy day, but got my training in. Early in the morning before going to the temple ran with Stuart. He did a time trial - Slate Canyon Loop (2.11) in 14:40. He is in a better shape than I thought - I gave him a goal of breaking 15:00 and felt it would be really good if he got close. The loop is short but tough - I like it because in 2 miles it discovers problems it would take 6 or so to see on a flat course.
Afterwards, did a two loop tempo at marathon pace with a pickup at 5 K pace at the end. I initially intended to only do the last 0.5, but seeing my splits made me a bit excited and I decided to do the last 0.75 instead. Hit the first loop in 12:17. Last 0.75 in 3:55, last loop 12:00, total time 24:17.
Felt better than yesterday, but still experienced the quad cramp up problem on the kick. This is to be expected, though - I am in the middle of hard training with strength emphasis.
Wore the ankle weights for the rest of the day after coming home from the temple. Got in 3.5 miles of always on the run/kids run, all with ankle weights. Benjamin really made me work on his kick - he hit the last 100 in 23. With the ankle weights, Joseph in the stroller, and at the end of a long work/service day I really had to dig in to stay with him.

Eric's calf was still sore this morning, so George and I went without him. I wanted to do some speed before we hit the trail.

Warmed up a bit, and did a control 0.5 to measure the threshold. Did not get good sleep last night, so my sense of pace was messed up. The first quarter was way too easy, and it showed - 1:25. I woke up on the second a bit and ran in it in 1:21 (2:46.5 for the half), but being messed up I could not tell if I was at the threshold or above it. This woke me up, though. Jogged a bit and ran 0.5 in 2:30.8 with perfectly even splits every 200. That did not feel quite like the 5 K knife was being stabbed into me yet, but another half mile, and I would probably have felt it.

Then went with George on the trail. Dropped him off, and still had half a mile to go to the house, so figured I'd do another 5 K pace pickup. However, jogging on the trail apparently put me to sleep. I hit a downhill quarter that should have been at least 70 at a 5 K pace in 73, and it felt way too comfortable. Then I tried to pick up on the uphill one, but still could not quite leave my comfort zone - 1:21 with 2:34 for the half-mile.

Then ran a mile with ankle weights in 6:58, then a run with the kids. Julia officially started her training today with a quarter in 2:55. In the evening she decided to do another, and this time ran 3:05. How about that - running in doubles at the age of 3!

Mini-taper for the 5 K tomorrow. Ran with Eric and George in the morning. Did some tune-up speed. First ran a tempo effort 0.5 in 2:43. Then 0.5 at aggressive 5 K pace in 2:30.6. Then jogged with Eric and George on the trail, and then hit the last 0.5 fast coming down the Slate Canyon road and back up on 1350 E. This time, I decided to make sure the downhill quarter would not be 73. It was 68, and I held on OK on the uphill quarter - 1:19 - 2:27 for the half.

Then ran 1.5 with Benjamin. A little later a mile with Jennifer, and then a quarter with Jennifer and Julia. Joseph always in the stroller. Jogged another 0.5 with ankle weights and Benjamin in the stroller timing me.

Salt Lake (instead of Marathon) 5 K. 16:09, 4th place. Given no prize money at the end, this made it a perfect race to intentionally die, and hopefully be resurrected in the next race. I executed the death part, and am hoping for the resurrection.

My plan was to run with Corbin until it becomes physically impossible with no regard to how it would affect the rest of the race. Afterwards, do my best to recover. Without the headwind to battle, Corbin hit the first mile, which was essentially flat, maybe a very slight down, in 4:50. I was surprised I was still alive - this is only 8 seconds slower than my mile PR! I managed to survive for another a little over 2 minutes. At around 7:05 into the race, I could not stay with him any more. Around 9 minutes into the race Nate Hornok caught me. I managed to stay with him until 2 miles, which we hit in 10:03 (5:13). Not bad - second mile was uphill. Just like this Shiz guy in Ether 15 in the Book of Mormon - head cut off, but still struggling for breath before he dies. This is exactly what happened to me - I managed to stay with Nate for another 20 seconds, and then he was gone.

The last mile had a nice downhill stretch after a short but unpleasant climb in the beginning. I'd rather have that last mile in the beginning, and the first one at the end, which is the way it is in Draper Days.

I managed to not get passed by anybody until right before the finish line. Steve Ashbaker sneaked by, and beat me by about half a second.

Steve just called me and told me the results of the race got really messed up. They put Corbin first, but gave him 16:09 - he ran probably at least 30 seconds faster. Nate is gone from the results. Steve's time is right, and he is second instead of third. He argued with the people in charge at the awards ceremony and vehimently refused to take Nate's prize, but to no avail. The timing company said they do not have a way to fix the problem. Now he will be explaining to everybody and their dog in Salt Lake City that they should not believe what they read in the paper.

According to Steve, they moved me all the way down to the 14th. I would not really have cared, except this is a big problem for the circuit. If the race timing company does not find a way to get their act together ( should really not be too hard - the footage of the finish does exist, but as big as they are they might not be that thorough), then there are two solutions - drop it from the circuit (Corbin will not be happy), or just have everybody who cares to get scored e-mail their time and place to Bill Francis. On the other hand, the race should not have been in the circuit to begin with - USATF rules say it has to have prize money, or no show, but they made an exception for this one.

In any case, this was a really good race to use for a specialty training run. I do not have a team to train with, except when I go to a race with competition. This is my chance, I'd better take it. Sure, if I had gone out with Nate from the start instead of Corbin, I would have finished in 15:55 or so. But I do not want to be running 15:55 5 Ks - I want to be sub-15 for a start. And the legs will not learn to run sub-15 by running just sub-16 all the time.

Afterwards, Steve and I ran to my car at Liberty Park. He, as always, wanted to make sure I was not mad at him for passing me so close to the finish. I keep telling him it is a race. In fact, of all the people behind me, he would have been my choice to pass me.

Got to the car, and tried to get to some place in the marathon where we could start pacing our friend Bill Cobler. In retrospect, we should have just backtracked on the marathon course. We got stuck in traffic, and then finally maneuvered our way to mile 18. I suspected we might have gotten there too late. We asked the volunteer, but she did not remember seeing Bill. We then saw Mike Evans and another runner, and asked them. They said "he had not been by". I thought this was an interesting response - I guess when you start getting passed, the world exists for you in terms of who's been by. So we thought Bill was having a bad race, and ran back. In the middle, Steve got excited and picked up the pace to about 6:00 mile. People kept telling us we were going the wrong way. Finally, we made it to 16. By that time, we realized there was no reasonable way Bill could be any further behind, and turned around. We paced a guy named Mike who was headed for about 3:40. For a while, I thought he might be able to go faster, but he did not seem to have as much juice as I hoped. We got back to 18. Afterwards, we needed to decide what to do. Steve was running late. So we decided to pick up the pace, get him to a Trax station while putting on some mileage, then I would come back to my car and drive to Provo. We sped up first to a 6:40 pace, and then we hit a mile in 5:47. Then I turned around and ran back to the car at 18. Again lots of comments about going the wrong way from the crowd.

In the evening ran with the kids. Total of 20 miles for the day. Somewhat unintentional long run - would not hurt.